It wasn’t Z’s victory; it was W’s loss

Including last night’s game, over his career he’s hit 6 homers against the Astros with 5 of them occurring at the Juice Box. Other than Wrigley, we’re apparently his favorite home run park. The only other team he has that many homers against is the Reds, but 5 of those were at Wrigley.

On the pitching side he’s 15-8 against the Astros over his career, and we are the only team he has 2 shutouts against. (One being an Ike induced no hitter in Milwaukee.) He’s got a 2.78 ERA against us which is his best against any team he’s faced more than 20 times. Only the Brewers have struck out more than us when facing him.

Going into last night’s game with Wandy pitching at home, and even knowing Z’s history against us, I thought we had around an 80% chance of a victory. I mean this is Wandy at Minute Maid, about as sure a thing as you can get over the last couple of years. Right? RIGHT?

Well, things didn’t work out that well as the Cubs beat us again 9-5 giving us yet another series loss at home.

But I’m not giving Z the credit for the loss. Sure he shut us down for 5 innings and hit yet another homer in our home park, but he wasn’t as sharp as we’ve seen him and we had our chances. Though we did manage 5 runs off him in the 6th, we could have done more.

No, this loss is, as it has been for the season, all on the pitching. Wandy had a very out of character bad night at MMP only making it through 5 innings after giving up 5 runs to start the game off. In relief Abad coughed up Z’s homer, then Wilton Lopez put it out of reach in the 8th giving up 3 more runs (1 unearned because of his own fielding error).

The Astros didn’t hit as well as they have been lately, but still managed 7 hits and 5 runs. That’s enough to win most games, but not if your pitching staff can’t keep things in check.

On a night when Downs could have been a hero again after raising his average to .417 (with only 12 ABs) going 2-3 with a 2 run homer, our pitching proved yet again to be our biggest weakness.

Arnsberg has some work to do.

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Last night was the first opportunity I’ve had to get down to the park and catch a game in person this season. What a beautiful night it was too. Roof open, a gentle breeze, and a classic Texas sunset. What an incredible place to see a baseball game.

I have to say that the big screen (“El Grande”) and the new “banner” wrapped around the park really brought some new life into the place.

Too bad there weren’t that many fans there. If it weren’t for the large count of Cubs fans, it really would have been empty.